1. Look for clear water.
2. You must have an active tide, either rising or falling.
3. When redfish play with your baits, slapping or hitting them without taking them, spray Gulp! Alive on them.
4. Make as many casts as you can. Keep the bait in the water.
“Some people like to see fish before they cast,” Mendoza said. “I do, too, but sometimes you have to just blind cast. It’s like you have to aggravate them into biting.”
5. Silence is golden. Be quiet.
6. On a slow day, idle along the banks of the marsh. If you spook up two or three fish within a 50-yard stretch, go somewhere else and look for the same pattern to fish, especially if you can fish farther down the bank you scouted.
7. Be alert to redfish that are in the middle of shallow ponds. You don’t just have to cast toward the bank. Patterns vary.
